Monday, October 8, 2012

This is an Evangelion Pencil Board

I own a lot of Evangelion junk, but this pencil board is particularly special, because the image on it is something that was there in my fandom from the very beginning.

Every store with some imported anime goods always has this stock of bootleg mini-posters, copying promotional images from whatever anime was popular that season. A friend of mine once had a bootleg poster with the same image that's on this pencil board. I passed by it multiple times when I came to visit her, but neither of us knew where it was from. Then, in 2002, I got into Evangelion and realized it was a picture of Kaworu and Shinji. I used the poster as a gateway to tell her about the show. We both loved it, and it was a huge favourite of ours for years. We've since gone our separate ways, but one of the last things I gave her was my old Evangelion VHS collection, back when she had problems with her DVD player.

Looking back at this picture, it's also interesting how it covers almost everything I like about Evangelion, in a single image. EVA-01 and her slick mecha design isn't there, but it has Shinji and Kaworu, my two favourite characters, but in a pose that is not sexualized, and the questioning text in the background shows the psychological aspects of the show. Out of all the pieces of Evangelion art I've seen, it's the one that gets me right here, you know?